Senate poised to vote against Trump's emergency

WASHINGTON — An 11th-hour Republican mission to save President Donald Trump from an awkward defeat by the Gop-run Senate on his declaration of a national emergency at the Mexican border seemed to collapse Wednesday.

The setback made it likely that defections from his own party will force Trump to cast his first veto — on a struggle directly related to his signature issue. It also left Republican senators facing a painful choice: defy a president who commands loyalty from conservative voters or acquiesce to what many lawmakers from both parties consider a dubious and dangerous expansion of presidential authority.

After a closed-door lunch, GOP lawmakers predicted that the Senate would approve a resolution Thursday annulling the emergency Trump has declared along the border. The Democratic-led House passed the legislation last month, meaning Senate assent would send it to Trump.

Republicans hoped Trump would support a separate measure curbing a president’s powers to declare future emergencies. Had he done so, they thought, it would be easier for reluctant GOP senators to support the emergency Trump has proclaimed this time to steer $3.6 billion more than Congress has approved for barrier construction.

But during the GOP lunch, Trump called Sen. Mike Lee, R-utah, chief sponsor of the bill limiting future emergency declarations, and told him he opposed that proposal, two officials said on condition of anonymity.

Republican hopes of a turnabout rested largely on a familiar phenomenon of the Trump administration — an unexpected change of mind.

Trump made clear he was not backing away from his border emergency. He told reporters he has told GOP senators to “vote any way you want.”

But he added, “Anybody going against border security, drug trafficking, human trafficking, that’s a bad vote.” Framing the vote that way seemed to be a message aimed at undecided GOP senators facing re-election races next year.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-calif., tried making it even harder for uncertain Republicans to support Trump’s emergency. She said the House would never consider the bill limiting future declarations by a president.